


Season 2, Episode 5

by marnies



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Comfort, Cuddles, Gen, High School, Hurt/Comfort, I hope this is good because i worked on it for a very long time, M/M, Protective Eddie Kaspbrak, Sick Stanley Uris, Sickfic, Skipping Class, Sleepy Cuddles, They're gay you can't stop me, delinquency, if no one reads this i will. scream, steddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 19:19:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marnies/pseuds/marnies
Summary: Years later, standing over a familiar birdbath with a familiar name freshly chiseled into its stone, Eddie Kaspbrak will remember how he came to love Stanley Uris.





	Season 2, Episode 5

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I worked really hard on this, so I hope people actually like it

I

How Stanley Uris Came to Loathe Green Tea

Everything fucking hurt.

The thing about pain was that more often than not, it brought a fascinating, almost pleasant sense of clarity--a pinch to the side, for instance. On the first midterm week they’d had the privilege of survival through, Stan and Eddie had endured many-a-pinch from each other during late-night study sessions, in order to keep each other awake. They’d still woken up the next morning sprawled over their papers (and each other) on the floor, but Eddie had gotten a ‘B+’ average on exams and Stan an ‘A,’ so they must have done something right. 

The thing about sickness was that it came with the pain, but without the refreshing clarity like from a pinch to the side, replacing that with a dullness that did nothing but numb his brain and make him bored, if not a little sleepy. Stan hated it. He hated lying in bed, unable to sleep but unable to study or leave the house. And he hated the endless cups of green tea his mother seemed to pull out of nowhere, pouring them down his throat and allowing mug after mug to sit oppressively on the table by his bed, just out of his reach, mocking him. He loathed it. He despised it.

These reasons and more were all why Stanley Uris was not sick. The lightheadedness that threatened to overcome him was only there because he’d just woken up; his throat, which felt as if it was about to close entirely, only throbbed because it was dry and he was thirsty; and the sickness which hit his stomach like a dull punch when he tried to relieve that thirst only could be due to that his stomach was not yet awake enough to handle icy water. As soon as he got to class, he would forget all about it. And as soon as he skirted past his mother, he’d get to class. He chose to dismiss having to undo the top button of his shirt due to its constriction of his swollen throat.

He skipped breakfast and boarded the bus, also dismissing the drivers look.

II

How Eddie Kaspbrak Came to Loathe First-period Earth Science

It was only 8:02 in the morning and Eddie was getting ready to kill everyone in the room and then himself. First period classes, he was told, were rarely tolerable, but Science was by far his worst class. His mother, he knew, wanted him to do well--if he did well in Earth Science, he’d do well in Biology, and if he did well in Biology, he’d get into Human Bio, which would help him in becoming a doctor, which would lead him to a wealthy life in which he knew how to take good care of himself and his body. That was how Eddie saw her logic, anyway. In practice, the freshmen in first-period Integrated Earth Sciences never seemed to shut up. It was impossible to learn around them--’them’ being everyone but Stan Uris, who wasn’t in class when Eddie walked in. He must be at home, sick, Eddie thought, and wasn’t that just beautiful; stuck in a windowless room with two dozen hopeless shitwads, plus poor Mrs. Richards, who couldn’t manage a classroom even if she did put in the slightest amount of effort. 

Eddie stared woefully at the empty seat beside him. If Stan was going to be here, he would by now. 7:55 was when Stan got into class on ‘A’ day mornings, and never once had he failed to be punctual. But here he was, absent. He must have a good reason (Stanley had come into school one day in October with the flu, and hadn’t even considered going home until Bill had gone to the front desk and called his parents on him), but there was no way he’d come in after the first bell had rung--

Eddie was torn from his thoughts by a familiar shuffle. Sure enough, Stan collapsed in the seat beside him. Eddie opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the late bell, followed by the roar of chatting kids. 

This was only the first deviation from Eddie’s anticipated Monday morning.

Eddie turned to his notes, opened his mouth once more, and shut it right as Mrs. Richards began to mumble, “Settle down, class.”

Mrs. Richards began to rattle off facts and Stan put his head down on the shared desk--thus occurred the second event that Eddie could not have foreseen. Stan Uris, who kept hand sanitizer in his backpack in case he should accidentally touch the surface of that dreaded science room table--

_ (The Sophomores do biology in here, Eddie-- _ biology!  _ Do you have any idea what kind of--) _

Eddie shuddered; the tendency reminded him of his mother.

But there Stan was, with his head stuffed between two folded arms, inches away from that desk he so feared. They sat in the front row, too; if Mrs. Richards thought he was sleeping, he’d get a detention, and then he’d really flip. Eddie poked his side.

_ Hot.  _ Stan was hot.

He poked again--this time he was experimental, tentative like one disturbing a sleeping bear with a stick just too short for comfort. Stan shifted to look at him this time, rolling his neck.

“What?”

“Sit up. Richards is gonna--”

Mrs. Richards cleared her throat passing by them. “Mr. Kaspbrak,” she inquired, “I trust you’re taking notes?”

_ Shit. Fuck. _

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, then buried his face in his paper. Stan had shifted his arm to look as if he’d been writing the whole time.  _ Asshole.  _ Their instructor hobbled away, oversized skirt swishing back and forth, as a fourteen-year-old across the room tried to stick a whole pencil up his friend’s nose. Stanley let out a huge, congested sigh, bringing back some buried, primal, skin-crawling concern that Eddie had forgotten since

_ (the leper, since the sewer--or don’t you remember? Don’t you remember how it felt to splash in shit, to look death right in the eye? Don’t you--) _

two summers ago, though not nearly as extreme today. He put a hand on Stan’s back regardless.

“You okay?” Eddie swallowed.

Stan opened his eyes unnaturally wide as if he’d just realized Eddie was there. They were red-rimmed. “Fine, why?”

“I don’t know, you just… Seem kinda’ off, I guess.” Stan continued to look at him oddly. “Sorry I asked.”

They continued to listen and work (or at least Eddie did) when Eddie realized he had missed a considerable section of the notes. He leaned to Stan once more. 

“Hey, did you get--”

Eddie did a double take at his third (and what he thought to be final) deviation from his regularly scheduled Monday morning. Stan appeared to be sound asleep. Unsure of what else to do, Eddie shook him. Then he leaned over and shook him again. His head shot up on the third shake.

“Wha--”

“You’re sick.” It wasn’t a question. Eddie realized he was leaning away from Stan, and did not stop himself. “You should be at home.”

Stan nearly fell out of his chair trying to sit up, and Eddie did not stop himself again from leaning even further backwards. “I’m fi--” he tried.

“No you’re not.” Without his brain telling it to do so, Eddie’s hand shot in the air. Stan’s eyes widened to the size of frisbees. They darted at him, begging to put his hand down and shut up, but Mrs. Richards had already approached.

“Yes, Mr. Kaspbrak?”

“Stanley’s sick. Can I walk him to the nurse?”

III

How Stanley Uris Came to Loathe the Nurses Office

Eddie bounced triumphantly, hall pass in hand, like a fucking asshole. Part of Stan admitted that he was a little happy Eddie was there--that part of him had noticed the violence with which his hands shook, despite his entire body being boiling hot. The other part of Stanley remained resolute that Eddie had no business poking around in Stan’s business, especially if he continued to insist that something was wrong with him. Stanley Uris did not get sick.

Eddie stopped bouncing, and looked at him with concern.

“Shut up,” Stan found himself saying.

“I didn’t say anything,” Eddie replied with far too little snark than Stan thought maybe he should have. They continued down the hall. Eddie seemed to tighten his grip on the puny hall pass.

Stan nearly swooned when they skittered to a halt outside the office. It was empty--or, at least, the area which they’d stopped at was. The office was divided between where kids who needed help were to sit and wait, and where they were to be interrogated for asking for an ibuprofen or something, in the actual office. She kept the door to that area tightly shut. From what Stan could hear, the nurse was questioning someone right then. Eddie seemed unhappy. He said something about how Stan should sit down, how he didn’t look so hot, and so forth, and Stan shoved him off without really hearing. They waited.

After what may or may not have been minutes, Eddie took a tentative seat. Stan followed suit, though less of his own accord and more on account of that the not-nurses-office took that moment to spin and churn around him. He fell heavily and hoped Eddie didn’t notice. He gave him a funny look, but otherwise said nothing (funny looks were becoming familiar between Stan and Eddie, so it was no anomaly). 

He wasn’t certain how long the walls danced around him, but the moments were not silent. Eddie rattled off nervously about topics of all sort, starting with how his mom had specifically instructed him to have a nice day that morning and how he wasn’t doing his best job at living up to that, and barreling past how he didn’t even want to go to medical school and hated all the kids in science class but Stan. Stan wasn’t quite listening. The thing with Eddie, Stan pondered, was that when he got to talking, he never quite seemed to shut up, especially since he had discovered that nothing, not even asthma, could stop him from not shutting up. By the time he had settled down, Eddie looked anxious. The door didn’t seem any closer to opening.

“You should get back to class,” Stan said.

“Are you kidding?” Eddie sounded indignant. “I’m not leaving you alone, dude. Don’t be stupid.”

“You just want to avoid class, don’t you?”

“Shut up.” A few moments later, Eddie stood and declared: “Fuck this.”

He marched in his Eddie-like way to the telephone near the door. Before Stan could get one word in, he had punched in the number of the Uris household.

“Eddie--”

One ring. His mom was going to be pissed.

“You don’t have to--”

Two rings. He didn’t want to go home.

“You really should--”

Three rings. Christ, he felt like shit.

The phone rang until it stopped. His mother did not pick up. Somewhere, Stanley thought he had already known that she wouldn’t (she was at a meeting, wasn’t she? An interview, maybe?) but his heart still sunk at the realization that with Eddie around, he would be stuck in the nurse's office all day.

_ Unless he kidnaps me,  _ Stan thought to himself.

“Unless I what?” Eddie asked.

“What?” Had he said that out loud?

“You said something,” Eddie established. “You want me to kidnap you?”

“No, I--”

“Fuck.” Eddie fell into his chair once more, pensive. 

“Ditto,” Stan sighed, and followed suit. His head had started spinning again, anyway. Eddie’s face had settled into another funny look--one he normally only associated with Richie.  _ Devious  _ was the adjective that came to mind, and he found himself whispering it out loud, though, thankfully, Eddie didn’t notice that time. Stan found that the hairs on his arms stood up. Maybe this was due to the fever--or maybe Eddie was about to do something big.

“Let’s go,” Eddie said, and took hold of Stanley’s aching arm.

IV

How Eddie Kaspbrak Came to Loathe Caretaking

Blood pounded in his ears to the beat of his own heavy footsteps as Eddie ran, dragging his victim behind him. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He could  _ not  _ believe he was doing this. Eddie never skipped class; not if his teacher tried to kill him, not if he’d inexplicably gotten the plague, and not if the world were coming to an end. So what was he doing? His mother’s voice shrieked in his head: 

_ “What are you doing, Eddie?”  _ she said. “ _ Stop it, Eddie-bear! You don’t want to get caught, do you? You’re going to get in trouble, Eddie, you’re going to be a criminal. I don’t want that for you, I want you to stop right--” _

“Shut up!” Eddie shrieked.

“Let me go, then!” Stan shrieked back.

“No!”

They tumbled out the door and toward the bike rack. Eddie fumbled for the lock on his bike and, almost as an afterthought, took Stan’s arm and shoved it to his own. The poor boy almost fell over.

“Eddie, what are we doing?” he begged.

Eddie looked to Stan as if seeing him for the first time. What  _ was  _ he doing? Was this his life now? Stan had one short line of snot dripping from his nose, a testament to his misery, which made part of him want to pull a tissue out of his fanny pack and wrap his shivering frame up in a blanket he didn’t have, like his mother sometimes did. The other part of him thought he was being selfish, only feeding some part of his wild spirit that had never quite been sated by the spoon-fed pills, salty tears, and softly-spoken cruel words of his childhood. Either way, Eddie thought, still clutching the handles of his bike and hearing the schoolbell’s muted buzz from inside, if this was who he was now, a classroom fugitive, a delinquent at the mercy of his own raging hormonal outbursts…

(He looked to Stan once more, who had unlocked his bike and was now leaning heavily on the rack. That line of snot was profoundly irksome.)

Eddie wasn’t completely opposed.

The ride home was clumsy. Stan rode Eddie double while Eddie dragged Stan’s bike beside them with one hand, clutching it by the seat. They stumbled more than once while Eddie tried to ignore Stan’s hot and labored breath on his neck. He didn’t even realize he’d been riding to Stan’s house until they stopped--he’d been meaning to ride to his own. He still acted as if it had been on purpose, wanting to seem responsible for Stan.

“It only makes sense,” he said, even though Stan hadn’t asked. “Your folks aren’t home. No one will have to know we’re here.”

Something about that statement was far more intimate than Eddie was ready to face, so he brushed it off like he did so many things. He walked Stan to his bed, who was compliant, as if all the stubbornness had drained out of him (Eddie somewhat proudly thought that his presence had that effect sometimes). He took his jacket and carefully hung it on a chair. A moment later, he drew back and hung it in the closet instead, knowing Stan was particular. He seemed happy about this. After a search, Eddie discovered a box of tissues, which was quickly retrieved and snatched out of his hands. He watched in mild revulsion as Stan took three tissues and lined them neatly before blowing out what looked to be all the mucus in his body, folding it all into a neat cube, and placing the bundle into the trash can beside his bed.

“That’s nasty,” he said.  
Stan gave him a pointed look. “I’m feeling nasty.” 

Eddie ignored him and went to retrieve a glass of water. A suspiciously whine-adjacent noise from behind him made him stop.

“What?”

“Are you leaving?”

“No,” Eddie assured. Then, less certainly: “do you want me to?”

A pause. “You should.” 

Eddie sighed again, not because of Stan’s words, but because he was trying to climb back out of bed. He stormed back into the room, the glass of water forgotten, and pushed Stan back by the chest with two fingers. This reminded him of another matter more pressing than water.

“Take your binder off.”

“I’m getting up.”

“Hey--” he tried once more to push Stan back, but he had already heaved himself upright. “I am the authority here!”

“Sure. Because I make a habit of obeying authority and doing as I’m told.” Stan told this honestly, but with a voice that dripped with more sarcasm than congestion. Eddie didn’t feel the need to point out that yes, Stan  _ did  _ make a habit of doing as he was told. He figured if Stan felt the need to butcher his beloved and well-used facetious voice with hoarseness, more power to him. Right now, Eddie was more focused on trying to keep him from escaping the blanket that trapped his legs. He finally pushed Stan’s weakened torso to the mattress with a formidable shove, leaving him too stunned to sit back up right away. 

“Get your binder off,” Eddie commanded in his best ‘I’m turning into my mother’ voice. “I’m going to get you some blankets.”

“Thanks, mom,” Stan mumbled to the pillow before Eddie shut the door.

The second the room was closed off, all the things he was going to need flooded Eddie’s head. Blankets, soup, tea, movies, and a TV for those movies were suddenly imperative to his friend’s health; Eddie was going to take a lot more time than he had anticipated.

Blankets were the easiest; Eddie found them in a hallway cabinet, folded. He grabbed three before carrying on to search for soup and tea, both of which he found in neatly-stacked cans and boxes in the kitchen. He found organic chicken soup and green tea where he would have found Chef Boyardee and Lipton in his own home. He prepared these before hunting for movies. In a hurry, he stacked the whole box of DVDs, the three blankets, soup, and tea on top of the television.  He thanked God for giving the TV wheels and the house no stairs before wheeling the load towards Stan’s room. Vaguely, he wondered if he was being over the top. 

Then he opened the door.

 

V

How Eddie Kaspbrak Comes to Love Stanley Uris

Tears run down the nose and cheeks of Stanley Uris in the privacy of his bedroom floor and Eddie Kaspbrak suddenly thinks he shouldn’t be there. A DVD slips off the tray he’s made of the Uris’ television set as if to mock him.

“Oh God. Fuck. Uuh.” Eddie thinks he should move, do something to make everything better, but he doesn’t. He stands with his dumb feet planted to the floor by that dumb cart of soup and movies that he thought might help like he has been glued to the spot. “I don’t--should I--do you want me to…” He slaps himself mentally. “Do you want me to go?”

Stan mumbles something from within the timid ball he’s made out of himself. He curls in such a fashion that Eddie cannot see his face, nor does he want to for fear of beginning to cry himself. Eddie takes it as a “yes,” and begins to inch out of the room. Then Stanley speaks louder.

“No.” 

“No?”

Finally, after what feels like an eternity of standing and shuffling at the doorway of a room that is not his, in a house he should not be in, at a time he should not be out, Eddie watches Stan raise his head. Stan is a wreck; glistening, fever-spotted cheeks that blur into puffy eyes and a snotty chin grace Eddie’s vision. But instead of remarking, Eddie calmly notes the box of tissues left on the bed. He picks them up. He crouches on the floor and he wipes his friend’s nose.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Eddie asks in a voice that is not his. (It isn’t his mother’s, either--the voice, as Eddie will realize later, is what he has always dreamed his father should sound like.) 

“Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

Stan sniffs once, twice, and then looks at him, bewildered. “I don’t feel good.”

Eddie doesn’t realise he’s been frowning until then. He reaches to feel Stan’s forehead, but Stan grabs his hand and holds it by his side, as if to trap him there. The instinct to jerk away is there--how could it not be with how he was raised? But Eddie shakes it off, decides he isn’t going anywhere, and leans against the wall. Stan follows suit, shifting into a more comfortable position. He’s unsure of how to act, so he doesn’t--instead, he talks. 

“You know a few months ago when I was gone from school for a whole week? I was pretty sick then, too. Probably would have looked a lot like this if my mom didn’t have such a bird…” He points across from them at the bird identification poster hung up on Stanley’s wall. “Heh.”

Eddie keeps talking until his nervousness settles, and after a while, Stan begins talking, too. 

“Thanks for being here,” he mumbles. Stan has always been a mumbler.

“Hey… I’ll always be here to cower in the corner with you.”

Stan mumbles some more and Eddie rambles quite a bit more, and after what Eddie will later discover to be two hours, they find themselves on the topic of mortality.

“The best stories come to an end, I think; that’s why you never see a classic with a sequel.” Stan’s eyes glaze over as if he’s been drugged, and Eddie is reminded of the fever he ran earlier. Then he seems to acknowledge Eddie sitting next to him, and huffs sheepishly. “Or at least, in what we’ve read so far--I don’t know… it’s only our first year of high school, right?”  
Eddie frowns, trying to think of what an adult would say. Stan is kind of talking like one now though, isn’t he? It scares Eddie a little. “It is,” he settles on. “You’re not old enough to think about that kinda’ stuff, Stan.”  
“You’re never too young to tell a story.”

A palpable density settles over the air and Eddie has sudden trouble taking it in. This is the point at which Eddie decides it’s time to take charge.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“To bed, for you. I’m going to try and find some cough syrup or something.”

“Medicine cabinet?”

“Thanks.”

Eddie ensures he’s settled before setting off to the medicine cabinet. He has to pick his way past the heap of movies and junk on his way out. As an afterthought, he grabs the cups of soup and tea and takes them into the kitchen for reheating. Once both are in the microwave, he tears apart the medicine cabinet to find a bottle of Nyquil, which he deems good enough before heading back into the bedroom.

“What took ya?”

“Took a pit stop in your mom’s room.”

“Sounds like something Richie would say.”

“Don’t ever say that to me ever again.” Eddie plopped down on the bed where Stan was awkwardly settled, spoon and soup in hand. “Open up.”

“You can’t seriously--”

Eddie cuts him off by shoving a spoonful into his mouth, then another. This effectively shuts Stan up. He knows how much Stan loathes food in his bed (he brought a bag of chips in there at a sleepover one time, and successfully got himself banned from sitting on it until now) so he takes longer than he needs to balancing his spoonfuls. Stan still doesn’t look happy at being babied. Once it’s finished, he whips out the Nyquil.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Stan says.

“Eh, I wanted to. Stan the Man needs a little humbling sometimes, right?” He reads the syrup label. “I’m sure this won’t taste so bad. Cherry flavor is promising.”

“Yeah, but is it kosher?” Stan gives a hoarse chuckle, and for a moment, Eddie is eleven years old again.

This time, Eddie hands the spoon to Stan and lets him feed himself. He takes the medicine, and immediately begins to cough. Eddie shoves the glass of water in his hands, and Stan chugs it. He closes with a violent wheeze.

“You lied. That tastes like dead dogshit.”

Eddie laughs and finds himself, in an almost natural motion, taking the glass and tucking the blanket up to Stan’s chin. Stan, surprisingly, doesn’t complain. They sit in amicable silence and wait for the medicine to work it’s magic.

“Eddie?” Stan mumbles after a few minutes. His voice is small, wide-eyed, like a little kid about to ask their parent about the Tooth Fairy. His eyes are drowsy.

“Yeah, Stan?”

“You’re my best friend.”

Eddie doesn’t feel the need to respond. It’s a fact--it has become a fact between them. After that summer, when they were eleven years old, Bill was Eddie’s best friend, Richie was Stan’s, and words like “love” and “fear” meant nothing to them, something changed. Eddie trusts Stan more than anyone in the world, and knows that he feels the same way. Not that any of the others need to know about that.

Eddie watches Stan fall asleep and doesn’t feel weird about it. He likes the way his sticky curls press into his forehead and his congested breath ends with a soft “ _ harumph.” _ He brushes Stan’s face clean, forgets about the impending trouble waiting for him at home, and opts to sit by his bed for just a little while longer.

Years later, standing over a familiar birdbath with a familiar name freshly chiseled into its stone, Eddie Kaspbrak will remember how he came to love Stanley Uris.

**Author's Note:**

> Cool stuff. Anyway, please leave a comment or something so I know if y'all liked it or not! I love talking to you guys


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